Grossfeld v. Baughman

• Decision Date: 08 May 1925
• Docket Number: 23.
• Parties: GROSSFELD ET AL. v. BAUGHMAN, STATE COM'R OF MOTOR VEHICLES.
• Court: Maryland Court of Appeals

129 A. 370

148 Md. 330

GROSSFELD ET AL. v. BAUGHMAN, STATE COM'R OF MOTOR VEHICLES.

No. 23.

Court of Appeals of Maryland

May 8, 1925

Appeal from Superior Court of Baltimore City; George A. Solter Judge.

"To be officially reported."

Petition for mandamus by Morris Grossfeld and another against E Austin Baughman, as State Commissioner of Motor Vehicles. From an order dismissing the petition, petitioners appeal. Affirmed.

Argued before BOND, C.J., and URNER, ADKINS, OFFUTT, PARKE, and WALSH, JJ.

George W. Lindsay and E. Allan Sauerwein, both of Baltimore (Sauerwein, Lindsay & Donoho, of Baltimore, on the brief) for appellants.

Herbert Levy, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Thomas H. Robinson, Atty. Gen., on the brief), for appellee.

PARKE J.

The question on this appeal is the constitutionality of chapter 412 of the Acts of 1924, which became effective on June 1, 1924. By this act article 56 of the Maryland Code of Public General Laws, title "Licenses," subtitle "Motor Vehicles," was amended by the addition of this new section:

"141-A. The commissioner of motor vehicles is hereby authorized and directed to refuse to issue or transfer any plate or marker, certificate of registration or title for any motor vehicle unless he is satisfied that all taxes due and in arrears thereon have been paid. This section shall only apply to applications made for motor vehicles owned in the City of Baltimore, and provided that this section shall apply only in the case of taxes becoming due and in arrears in the year 1924 and thereafter. Nothing in this Act shall apply to commercial trucks." 2 Bagby's Annotated Code 1924, art. 56, § 183, p. 2003.

Morris Grossfeld, who was a resident of Baltimore, assigned his certificate of title to a noncommercial truck on November 10, 1924, to the Wilson-Nash Motors Company, which made formal application to the commissioner of motor vehicles for the transfer to it of the title to the automobile on November 12, 1924. The assignor and assignee had complied with all the statutory requirements for a transfer of the title except only that of chapter 412 of the Acts of 1924, which could not be done, as the assignor, admittedly, had not paid the taxes for the year 1924 then due and in arrears on the automobile. The assignee was acting upon the assumption that chapter 412 is void, and, if this be correct, the commissioner should have made the requested transfer of title in accordance with the statute.

The appellants contend that the act is unconstitutional (1) because it deprives the citizen of his property without due process of law; (2) because it denies to the citizen of Maryland the equal protection of the law; (3) because it violates the constitutional right to the citizen of uniform taxation; (4) because it "infringes fundamental principles of right and justice"; and, finally, (5) because it is a special law covering a matter for which provision has been made by an existing general law. In support of this position, provisions of article 14 of the Constitution of the United States, articles 23, 15, and 45 of the Declaration of Rights, and article 3, section 33, of the Constitution of Maryland, are invoked.

1. The act prevents the commissioner of motor vehicles from issuing or transferring any plate or marker, certificate of registration or title for any one of a designated class of automobiles without the prepayment of the taxes due and in arrears thereon for 1924 and thereafter. It is obvious that there is here no physical taking of property for public use; nor is there involved any destruction or impairment of an attribute or quality of property affecting its value or utility through a change in its nature, use, or characteristics. Even an existing right to or use of a plate or marker, certificate of registration, or of title for the particular motor vehicle is not affected. The law acts prospectively, and simply postpones the operation of the automobile and the transfer of its title on the records of the commissioner of motor vehicles while the arrearage for subsequent taxes continues. In the instant case there is no question of the validity of the assessment and the levy of the tax, nor of its being due and in arrears, so it cannot be maintained that, if there had been a taking of the automobile for the taxes by a summary procedure, it would not have been a familiar administrative process which has long been established as being within the meaning of due process of law. Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U.S. 97, 24 L.Ed. 616; Kelly v. Pittsburg, 104 U.S. 79, 26 L.Ed. 658; Murray v. Hoboken Land, etc., Co., 18 How. 272, 15 L.Ed. 372; McMillen v. Anderson, 95 U.S. 37, 24 L.Ed. 335; Eames v. Lavage, 77 Me. 212, 52 Am. Rep. 751; Weimer v. Bunbury, 30 Mich. 201, Cooley, J.

A fortiori the deprivation or inhibition of some designated rights or privileges of ownership to enforce the payment of a tax is not a deprivation of property without due process of law, if the incidence of the process of collection be equal and uniform, with respect to the privileges conferred and the liabilities imposed, among all the persons subject to the tax, under like circumstances and conditions. Infra.

2. The power to tax is inherent in sovereignty. The method of its imposition is, however, a proper subject of inquiry, and it must survive the test of uniformity and equality. If, however, a law provides for the classification of the property, subject to its operation into different classes, and makes for one of these classes particular provisions so as to enforce the payment of the taxes on that class of property through regulatory inhibitions on its use and devolution of title, the requirement of equality and uniformity of procedure is met, if the provisions have impartial application to all members of this class so that the law shall operate equally and uniformly on all persons in similar circumstances. Miller v. Wicomico County Com'rs, 107 Md. 438, 442, 444, 69 A. 118; Cooley on Constitutional Limitations (6th Ed.) pp. 587, 590. Legislation which is public in its objects does not become unequal and partial from the circumstance that it is local rather than general in its application, or that it is restricted to a particular class instead of embracing all citizens. Again, it is within the recognized province of the Legislature to classify property according to its character, use, description, and location. Accordingly, the act before us is not open to objection on the score that it affects only the residents of one political division of the state and only that class of its residents who are the owners of all motor vehicles within that territory, with the exception of commercial trucks. The reason is that the tax and the methods of its collection are universal in their application to all of the designated class within the political unit to which they apply. 1 Cooley on Taxation (4th Ed.) §§ 249, 259, 260; Jennings v. Coal Ridge Imp. Co., 147 U.S. 147, 13 S.Ct. 282, 37 L.Ed. 116.

3. As there can be no inequality and discrimination in a legal sense where all those of the same class are subject to the same liabilities and enjoy the same privileges, so a general method for the collection of a tax within a distinct political division may undoubtedly be prescribed by the Legislature, unless forbidden by the state Constitution. As stated by an eminent authority, "Very summary methods are sanctioned by practice and precedent." Cooley on Constitutional Limitations (6th Ed.) pp. 480, 481, 639, n. 4; 3 Cooley on Taxation (4th Ed.) § 1326; State v. Mayhew, 2 Gill, 487. And the reason is that the state will not endure without the regular and uniform receipt of the public revenue, and, by virtue of this imperative necessity, the state cannot tolerate delay in the payment of taxes. Hence, we find the legislative body providing for distress and sale of property; detention of imported goods until payment is made; imposition of penalties for nonpayment; making payment a condition precedent to the exercise of some legal right, such as voting at elections, the bringing of a suit, or the carrying on of a business, supra. 3 Cooley on Taxation (4th Ed.) §§ 1351, 1352, 1354; 26 R. C. L. pp. 384, 385.

So a New York local law which prohibited owners of land in the county, on which taxes have been assessed and remain due and unpaid, from peeling bark or cutting timber on such land was held not unconstitutional as being an arbitrary interference with the right of property or beyond the legislative power. Prentice v. Weston, 111 N.Y. 460, 18 N.E. 721, 722.

The statutes of Maryland afford many illustrations that the rule of uniformity and equality of taxation does not apply to provisions relating to the collection and enforcement of the tax, provided these provisions and any penalties imposed for failure to pay taxes are equally and uniformly imposed upon persons similarly situated and belonging to the same class. 1 Cooley on Taxation (4th Ed.) §§ 309, 308, 260; Leser v Lowenstein, 129 Md. 244, 98 A. 712; Bagby's Code 1924, art. 81, §§ 52, 67; Boston & A. R. Co. v. Mercantile Trust & Deposit Co., 82 Md....